Development of semiconducting polymers nanoparticles for photothermal therapy

• Main Author: Ng, Ghim Hwee
• Other Authors: Pu Kanyi
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Bioengineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/72056
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Optical nano agents have been studied intensively and numerous therapeutic agents were developed in the past few decades for effective precision medicine. In this report, SPNs (near-infrared absorbing semiconducting polymer PCPDTBT with difunctional block copolymer surfactant F127) were synthesized by nanoprecipitation, and were used to analyze their photothermal imaging capability to treat in-vitro 4T1 tumour cells. The PCPDTBT- F127 SPNs had an average diameter of 26.65 ± 0.22 nm and for UV-Vis absorption, there were 2 absorptions peaks at 409 nm and 666 nm respectively. Confocal imaging showed PCPDTBT-F127 SPNs were able to enter 4T1 cells and it was mainly located in the lysosome. The SPNs possess great photostability, showed good biocompatibility and effective therapeutic results of killing 4T1 cells. Future work should be conducted in vivo, such as on mice subject, to prove PCPDTBT-F127 SPNs is a potential candidate for cancer therapeutic applications.